The banks of dunes, cliffs, sloping grounds, and other properties are subject to highly undesirable erosion. Due to the cycling of temperature, moisture, freezing and other conditions, the surface layers thereof typically are unstable and tend to creep downwardly in shear. Sooner or later their facings give rise to serious dislocations unless steps are taken to secure the unstable surface layers against erosion.
In order to prevent erosion and for both aesthetic and environmental protection reasons, it is often necessary or desirable to grow ground vegetation because the roots of vegetation planted along such properties tend to secure the unstable surface layers against erosion. The successful sprouting and growth of ground vegetation planted on these areas, however, is often prevented by the soil erosion which the planted vegetation is designed to inhibit, the erosion frequently carrying away at least some portion of the soil before the vegetation takes hold. Furthermore, adverse weather may inhibit the vegetation growing process. For example, in a storm, the banks of such properties are subjected to powerful winds and rain that often carry away the facing soil, and with it, any vegetation rooted therein.
To alleviate this problem of eroding vegetation roots, it is now a common practice to lay erosion control blankets over grass seed. The protective covering most used is what is best termed a blanket or mat comprised of netting and underlying excelsior. At the job site, the erosion control blanket bundles are unrolled in a side-to-side relationship along the earth area to be protected against erosion, and are secured along the sides of one another and to the underlying ground area with the use of a spaced series of conventional ground staple members, which may be made of steel, wood, plastic or starch. The installed erosion control blankets generally have parallel sides and abut one another to form a substantially solid surface to shield the underlying earth area, and thus the planted ground vegetation therein, from wind and rain erosion forces. The erosion control blanket must be fastened in place in the ground so that it will not be displaced from the desired location by weather effects such as rain, water runoff or wind.
In order to install erosion control blankets, a user must roll the blankets over the ground. This type of installation requires the user to exert physical force in a bent over position which leads to back, neck and knee problems. After the erosion control blankets are installed, the blankets must then be fastened to the ground. Manually rolling out and securing the erosion control blankets onto the ground and fastening these blankets to the ground with devices that require manual operation is slow and inefficient.
Therefore, what is needed is a device that enables a user to efficiently install erosion control blankets while using minimal manual labor. It is to these and other improvements that preferred embodiments of the present invention are generally directed.